Sunday, November 2, 2008

First VoiceThread - My Mom Gave Me a Nickel

This was my first attempt with VoiceThread - I was excited to use it to pin down the song that Liam's preschool teacher taught him 2 years ago, and thrilled to do it using a true mix of multimedia! First, the boys and I created a visual representation using good old paper, crayons and glue. Liam added his own take on the main character (he turned him into a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle). Kieran and I drew the store and Kieran added the signage on the store. Next, I took photographs of the picture, uploaded them to my laptop, then we got into the fun stuff of creating the show. We decided to do 3 slides - the first containing the song, the 2nd and 3rd were comments on the pictures. Downloading the photos was not difficult, and my laptop has a built-in microphone, so it made the recording process rather easy.

In the end, it was a great little family project to work on. I know it is very rough around the edges, with lots of pauses and ramblings, but I didn't want the boys to re-do it (they were happy with it the way it was). I wonder, if this had been a classroom project would I have encouraged them to have a re-do? I suppose it would depend on the grade level, the child, the project, the intended audience, etc. We could definitely have a lesson on making our VoiceThread's the best they can be. We could listen to a few and see if we thought the pauses and ramblings detracted from the message. It really comes down to a personal choice, I suppose.

Carol,Great, now I can see your and hear your voicethreads. I notice when I try to leave a comment, when it's posted on a blog, the comments that come up on the left are blocked. Can you see them on the original site?

I loved hearing the voices of all your family members in one way or another on your voicethreads. Hearing your husband's perspectives as well as your own was interesting. What a great way to remember your children growing up and the special things you do together. Next time I'm in Victoria visiting my sister, we'll have to check out Goldstream Park. It looks wonderful.

About this blog

Welcome to Tea for [Web] 2.0! This blog will be my virtual learning log while I journey through the EDES 501 course, "Exploring Web 2.0 Tools for Schools and Libraries", and EDES 545 - "Information Tech for Learning" offered through the University of Alberta. And yes, there will be pots and pots of tea consumed during these months of learning!